I grocery shop every Wednesday. Today is Wednesday December 30, 2009 so it is officially my last trip to the grocery store for the next year. Can't say that I'm sad about that! Anyway, I'm taking "last meal" requests from my family. Everyone gets one last meal of their favorite dish. So this week we are having:
Chicken Enchiladas
French Dip
Stuffed Shells
Hamburgers
Tri-Tip
Chicken Adobo
This is going to be one whopping grocery bill - LOL. I'm going to have to avoid the temptation to stock up at the grocery store. It's going to be hard. I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by this whole project already.
On a related note, I got a Bosch for Christmas!! I'm SO excited! I had a KitchenAid that has been my trusted companion for the last 10 years but I can only make 2-3 loaves of bread at a time which means baking bread twice a week for my large family. With this Bosch I can make up to 8 loaves at once ~ Woo Hoo!! Now I can keep the extra loaves in the freezer until I need them.
Next Sunday I will post my official rules for the coming year....
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Costco Trip
So I made my monthly trip to Costco this week. Definitely didn't buy the usual though since I was buying in anticipation of going full food storage in January. That means no meat or other non-food storage items that we wouldn't have time to eat before January.
I did buy their 5 gallon bucket of powdered milk. I already have all my powdered milk but theirs was SO cheap ~ only $27! It makes 52 gallons of milk so that is like 51 cents per gallon! Can't beat that. Unfortunately it not real powdered milk, it's milk substitute, so while it tastes good, it lacks some of the nutrients. It will be great to use in baking though, and drinking occasionally.
I also bought some spices, chicken boullion in particular. I have realized already that I don't have enough spices stored. With such a limited number of ingredients to cook with, and most of them very bland, spices will be all that stands between us and food fatigue. Especially when I have little ones who would rather just not eat if they don't like it.
On a related note, I FINALLY got my kids to eat a 13 bean soup recipe. I've been experimenting with different recipes and my kids have hated them all so far. This week I decided to keep it simple so I just put 2 cups of my dry mix of 13 beans in my crockpot with 6 cups chicken broth and turned it on low for 6-8 hours. When the beans were soft, I served the soup with a sprinkle of garlic salt on it. It was a HUGE hit! My 5 and 7 year old literally licked the bowl clean and asked for more. My older kids just said, "Finally mom, a bean soup recipe that isn't gross." :) Apparently less is more. I should have just tried chicken broth to begin with instead of a bunch of complicated spices. Lesson learned.
I did buy their 5 gallon bucket of powdered milk. I already have all my powdered milk but theirs was SO cheap ~ only $27! It makes 52 gallons of milk so that is like 51 cents per gallon! Can't beat that. Unfortunately it not real powdered milk, it's milk substitute, so while it tastes good, it lacks some of the nutrients. It will be great to use in baking though, and drinking occasionally.
I also bought some spices, chicken boullion in particular. I have realized already that I don't have enough spices stored. With such a limited number of ingredients to cook with, and most of them very bland, spices will be all that stands between us and food fatigue. Especially when I have little ones who would rather just not eat if they don't like it.
On a related note, I FINALLY got my kids to eat a 13 bean soup recipe. I've been experimenting with different recipes and my kids have hated them all so far. This week I decided to keep it simple so I just put 2 cups of my dry mix of 13 beans in my crockpot with 6 cups chicken broth and turned it on low for 6-8 hours. When the beans were soft, I served the soup with a sprinkle of garlic salt on it. It was a HUGE hit! My 5 and 7 year old literally licked the bowl clean and asked for more. My older kids just said, "Finally mom, a bean soup recipe that isn't gross." :) Apparently less is more. I should have just tried chicken broth to begin with instead of a bunch of complicated spices. Lesson learned.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Did you know?
Only 3 more weeks until the big experiment begins and I'm getting pretty excited! My husband is grumbling less about it which is nice and I have found a lot of recipes, and a couple of cookbooks that are going to be very helpful. They are called "Cookin' With Home Storage" and "Country Beans" Both of them have lots of recipes that contain only food storage items, and lots of other helpful info. Like, did you know that you can mix some bean flour in with your regular wheat flour when making bread and it makes a complete protein? I've also run some pinto beans through my wheat grinder to make bean flour and made YUMMY refried beans with it, plus you can use bean flour to thicken sauces, and as a soup base. In fact I'm using bean flour tonight to make gravy for my pot roast. Very cool.
I also found an older Make a Mix book that is going to help solve one of my biggest obstacles to living off food storage - the time factor. I just don't have all day to be cooking meals. However, I have found TONS of recipes that you just make the dry mix ahead of time and then you can use the mix to throw dinner together at the last minute. Think soup mixes, bread mixes, and even seasoning mixes like taco seasoning, soup seasoning etc. Oh, and get THIS - did you know you can make almost everything from scratch? I have recipes for yeast, mayonnaise, cream of anything soup, dried onion soup mix.... Seriously. EVERYTHING. And (here's the best part) they require only the ingredients I have in my food storage! I know that you are all dying to know more. I will post recipes and stuff of these items as I use them. And of course, I'll let you know how they taste! OK, have to get going as I have maxed out my available allotment of exclamation points for one post.
I also found an older Make a Mix book that is going to help solve one of my biggest obstacles to living off food storage - the time factor. I just don't have all day to be cooking meals. However, I have found TONS of recipes that you just make the dry mix ahead of time and then you can use the mix to throw dinner together at the last minute. Think soup mixes, bread mixes, and even seasoning mixes like taco seasoning, soup seasoning etc. Oh, and get THIS - did you know you can make almost everything from scratch? I have recipes for yeast, mayonnaise, cream of anything soup, dried onion soup mix.... Seriously. EVERYTHING. And (here's the best part) they require only the ingredients I have in my food storage! I know that you are all dying to know more. I will post recipes and stuff of these items as I use them. And of course, I'll let you know how they taste! OK, have to get going as I have maxed out my available allotment of exclamation points for one post.
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